Caves, trolls, and mines

[Ziggyzog]

I heard trolls are the most dangerous monster in the game (how suprising) but I am not 100% sure where they live. Do they live only in the mountains or can they live in caves too? Also if you mine into a cave or are mining inside a mountain, can you come across trolls that way to? I would like to be able to mine safely without risking the chance of running into these fearsome beast.

[TeckXKnight]

They only appear when you've mined a tile out. They do not spawn naturally besides that. This means they only spawn in caves or mines. You may never mine safely~ (Because they spawn a whole lot, y'know. Maybe once every 4000 or so mined out tiles.)

[Sevenless]

They only appear when you've mined a tile out. They do not spawn naturally besides that. This means they only spawn in caves or mines. You may never mine safely~ (Because they spawn a whole lot, y'know. Maybe once every 4000 or so mined out tiles.)

Basically trolls are 90% reward (best Q bones/hide in the game) and 10% punishment for afk/botting miners. That's about it. They become more common the deeper you mine, and they're incredibly rare on lvl 1 (caves and surface mine holes). Very few have ever been sighted on any level even.

[Windforce]

And if you dig too deep, like in LOTR, you'll get a Balrog.

[MagicManICT]

And if you dig too deep, like in LOTR, you'll get a Balrog.

What Mr. Tolkien didn't say was that the dwarves had really dug down into Hel and all Hel broke loose. Much fun was then had by the dwarves.

[Girlinhat]

Do bear in mind that a lot of Dwarf Fortress players enjoy H&H (It's like Farmville if it were designed by dwarves!) and that DF has a very... !!Fun!! reaction if you dig deep enough.

[Ziggyzog]

So you can mine in layers?

Also does this mean since I'm not too good at combat at the moment, that I should avoid mining too deep?

[Girlinhat]

Your fort is on layer 1 (more than likely).
Caves and most mines are on Layer 2.
If you build a mine hole inside a cave or mine, it takes you to layer 3.
Build another one there, and it takes you to layer 4...

Sadly the strength requirements for mining deeper are much much higher every layer. On layer 2 I can blast through rock in a few swings. On layer 3, it's Much Too Hard. Get that tobacco, beer, and boar tusk snuff stacked atop your bear cape and bear tooth talisman, and you can mine out some ore for a few seconds. True mining is done in drunken, violent spasms a few seconds long each.

[cloakblade]

I've heard that trolls are only on the 2nd mine level (minehole in in a mine). Is this true (or thus far correct).

[TeckXKnight]

Your fort is on layer 1 (more than likely).

Surface is not a layer, it's just the surface. Caves and initial mines are Layer 1.